On of the three most beautiful stages of life is youth where all possibilities are all around you. Life has more shades and colors, emotions are intense and exciting. Dreaming your dreams is so beautiful better than watching movies. Energy is limitless and days are endless. Experiences of excitement are never ending. Life is full of promise, possibilities and drama. It has full live wire tingling desire on life. When I was young back in my schooldays I dreamt so many things. It becomes my habit to dream and at times couldn’t help dreaming of my dreams on and on. I felt so entertained and inspired by the thoughts of what if? I have no knowledge of how life could be full of frustrations and broken dreams. My thoughts were so positive that I see in my invisible eyes what I would become one day. Youth has no exhaustion the way old ones would have. They burst into many actions and endeavor without a pause or a comma. Everything is like in a boiling point. When I was young, aggressive as I was in all facets of my life I continue to do what I want without a stop in thing I believed in or convinced about what was the right thing to do. Like, during the tumultuous time of 1983 when I went ahead and paraded in the street of protest, mayhem and violence. I was an activist. I thought I was fighting for the rights of my countrymen not being used by similar enemies for their own vested interest. Many died from extrajudicial killings. My friends in the streets were gone. And till today I remain. Their conviction was mine too. Their fate was theirs. Maybe it is the result of the youth predilection to fearlessly confront even the bullets of the murderers. We live according to the stages of life. Whether you would like it or not youth is the first entry towards the realities of society. We were idealistic, uncompromising. They were ready to die for what is patriotic, noble and heroic. We thought we were supermen. We had been shouting to the top of our lungs protest, anger and objection and the aspirations so distant to realize that time. After a while, I realized even the martyrdom was staged, newspaper mind conditioned the public publishing fake news, and oligarchs manipulated turns of event till recently until the present leader has arrived. They painted a scenario towards their desired result. That is to get power and perpetuate their abuse and exploitation of the common man and the motherland. The hybrid colonialism had been instigated by fellow Filipinos trained by foreign master on how to ransack their own country for their share of the fat of the land. They were indeed the bunch of traitors and worse than the foreign invaders. They committed political and economic incest raping their own flesh. Youth is the culmination of life in its most active stage. It is easily brainwashed except for the few who really think. A part of it enjoys life as it is, making things exciting and interesting in their ways and in their creativity. They have so much anticipation of a beautiful life forever in a day. Until the heavy load of disappointment and the sting of realities start to kick in. Some went to depression, others faced the challenges, some won and many failed all the same. Many started to accept what they have and what they are in many still wanted to change the way things were, at least in their own personal life. Many people the young ones who were entering the real adulthood stage where work, marriage and other responsibilities came and landed on to their shoulder. They have to abruptly mellow down from being intense in all areas of their lives. Focusing only on what is achievable, realistic, and practical. And concern themselves to things specific that could be realized in due time. They are the new parents of the land. In my own opinion youth with intensity and aggressiveness begins at fifteen and ends at twenty-five. Youth means from teenage years to thirty.

Old age is the time of reckoning of coming to terms with the truth and life itself. It is the mellowing of all the speed, daringness, and carelessness of youth. It is the sculpting of the excesses and the rough edges of our life. It is peace and joy that is not more on senses but felt in the heart and spirit. It is only true when we truly accept the realities of life and the truth of our limitations. The attitude and the character in the old age is more or less settled in stability and permanence. Old age understood life in its entirety and walked through it with more confidence of experience rather than the confidence of idealism of youth. Old age becomes the teacher of those who would tread life. Old age could tell the highways from the path of a virgin jungle and the potty holed road of a turbulent red-blooded warrior spirit of youth. Old age gives us the lullaby and comfort that everything is vanity and nothing new under the sun. At the end all shall pass away and only our faith in God remains; believing we shall return for a bonanza of everlasting celebration and rejoicing where tears, pain and death would be the things of the past. This truth would send you with your old age to a quiet confidence and see through the silent joke of what life has brought for us here in this world. Old age is the awakening of a grateful heart and longing spirit towards peace, serenity, love and simplicity towards oneself and all others. Old age is beautiful that way.

I am now fifty-six years old and I speak to all who cares to listen, I have relinquished the ambition that are only worldly and for self-grand standing. I search now for the things I could do only for the glory of God. Mindful the time is ticking away and my visa on earth is maybe getting expired soon. Yet I have this solid confidence that before my God will take me out of this temporal world, my basic wishes will come to pass. Yes, I have abiding faith. God’s love and promises never fails. Whatever the future holds, I know His will is much better than anyone on earth or anywhere. This is the best stage of our life because we should know in this stage the gravity of our purpose why we are alive and living.

Death is our graduation from this earthly life for those who are called and chosen, for those who have successfully finished the race like St. Paul – it is the ultimate experience for in truth to die is not death but sleep. Death is like a hibernation that turns a caterpillar into a butterfly so is man from mortal and corruption into immortal and incorruptibility. Death is rest. There is a tendency to avoid death as much as we could. I believe that when God wants you to sleep, you should. Do not go against the schedule God has made for you. Do not worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Thank God for what he has done and pray for what you need or even your request, reason with the Lord for He listens well. He will calm our hearts and peace shall cover us. There are long days for those who abide in God’s Love.

Death is the end and also the beginning. Death is just saying till we meet again.